I am an online marketer with a 8-year track record helping companies meet operational and profit objectives by finding their prospects and brand advocates on search engines and social media. I have coordinated and executed online strategies for Donald Trump, The Nielsen Company, Adweek, AOL, and many other global brands. I have driven millions of pageviews using social media. I vlog on how businesses can use social media marketing and the search engines to meet their business objectives. Please add me to you circle on Google +

The Web is Not User Friendly! Face it, and Embrace It!

In early 2004, I was sitting in my mother’s living room broke and out of work, when it dawned on me: “Why don’t I get a job?” I’m a genius, right? I picked up a circular which listed job classifieds and bypassed all of the training offers posted by nursing schools. I found one listing for computer technical support representatives. I would sit on the phone and help people who had issues with their computers. The job paid $9 an hour if I recall correctly; and $12 an hour upon completion of a three-month probationary period. Nine dollars an hour is still nine more dollars than zero, so I figured, why not? After all, I did successfully change the hard drive on my Hewlett Packard tower after downloading free viruses and music from Napster. I actually bought my friend a six pack of Coronas, and he did it for me. I was a buzzed spectator, which undisputedly fully qualified me for this job.

The listing read that I needed experience working with NIC ethernet cards. I called the number to TAG (The Answer Group) in, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I told them I had experience working with NIC cards, and I knew the inside of a computer like the hairs on my armpit. They scheduled me to come in the following day for a test and an interview.

In college, Columbia University‘s Sree Sreenivasan held an internet workshop for journalists in Norman Green’s NYU television journalism class. One of the links to his directory pointed me to About.com, which teaches you the basics on practically everything. I spent the whole night learning every part of the computer, from the cooler to the booter. I read and re-read all the basics of a hard drive, ethernet card, local and wide area networks right on About.com. Once I read almost every web page on computer hardware that I could click, I looked up each computer part on the Microsoft Windows XP help program. I read what I could without typing on the keyboard with my forehead until 4 am, or so. Then I figured I would take my laptop with me and study before the interview in the car or waiting room.

As soon as I checked in at the receptionist desk, I was handed a test printed with broken black ink. I knew some of the answers to the questions. There were many, however, that I didn’t know, so I just opened up my laptop and looked them up on Windows XP help. The receptionist wasn’t paying me any mind. I completed the test and sat back down waiting to be called. The interviewer, entered the room holding on to my application and my test. She called me in.

She asked me one or two questions on what kind of work I had performed on computers. I told her about my successful hard drive surgery, and a few other tech implementations, like the choosing of my friend’s Point of Sale system for his barber shop that he never bought.

“You sound like you really know your stuff,” the interviewer said. And she scheduled me to start work at their Ft. Lauderdale call center the following Monday.

I took the test again at the call center and passed with a perfect score this time; no laptop required. And I worked at the call center for about six months. I learned how to correct dozens of computer issues with Windows and Macintosh operating systems that prevented them from connecting to the internet; including one issue where a spark in the computer hardware ignited all the dust in the tower and lit the whole computer on fire. My computer operating skills were upgraded. And it gave me the necessary skills and experience to continue working at a help desk when I moved back to New York City. Working as a Cablevision technician in Long Island, New York, I learned how to sell digital products as an affiliate on the web.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.